AN: Some liberties taken with the size of Bato's boat, to make it conveniently store-on-deckable rather than something I needed to make a plot point of. I suspect it was only as big as it was in the show so that the Gaang could all fit aboard (and look visually nice) during the ice dodging scene. One dude with a bad arm does not need a boat that big.
7. Bato Enters Occupied TerritoryThe cheering was a bit dramatic, but Bato appreciated the warm welcome. He even appreciated the rope ladder tossed down to him, as casual as if he'd just been out scouting. As casual as if his arm wasn't still half a dead weight at his side. He grit his teeth into a fierce grin, and climbed aboard like he was still the man he was when he'd left.
Hakoda offered him a hand, the last few feet. Pulled him up by his good arm, and didn't make a spectacle of whatever he'd noticed that prompted the gesture.
"How were the nuns?"
"Very healing," Bato smirked.
His best friend and chief pulled him into a half-hug, wordlessly careful of his bandaged side. Bato returned the gesture. It was good to be back.
Hakoda stiffened, and broke away to glare over the side of the ship. "Off the boat."
"Tuluk said to—"
"Off."
Bato didn't recognize the face glaring up at them. The awful haircut made it hard to judge the boy's age; the scowl didn't help, nor did the mark of fire splayed over his face. A much older wound than Bato's. It wasn't until the kid sullenly scaled the ladder and stood on deck, a very deliberate arm's length-and-a-half out of Hakoda's reach, that Bato saw the rest.
Unnatural gold eyes. Morbidly pale skin. And a Fire Nation red shirt, barely hidden under a Water Tribe coat that neither fit nor suited him.
"He said to unload. I was unloading." The boy crossed his arms over his chest, and tilted his chin up in a challenge.
"You were examining the rigging," Hakoda said flatly, like a man who'd had this conversation too many times, in too many forms. "Thinking of going somewhere?"
"I wasn't escaping, everyone could see me and anyway it's the middle of the day, I'm not stupid—"
"Get below deck, Prince Zuko. Clean the bird cages."
"I cleaned them last night!"
"Clean them again."
"...Prince Zuko of the Fire Nation," Bato said, as everything about the kid's appearance—minus why he was on their ship—clicked together in his head.
"Bato of the Water Tribe," the Fire Prince returned, scowling like it was Bato who had something to answer for.
%%%
"And you couldn't have begged a pair of steel cuffs off of them before you ticked the Earth Kingdom off? Or asked their healer about bending suppressants?" his second-in-command questioned.
Hakoda groaned. "This is why I need you here."
"So you don't keep a royal firebender on a wooden ship?"
Said firebender was shouting something down the hall, about half as loudly as Toklo was laughing. Hakoda let his head sag into his hands, because this was Bato, and he didn't need to pretend to know what he was doing. Not when they were both behind the shut door of his cabin.
Bato was scowling in the direction of the noise. "Could Toklo or Panuk take him in a fight?"
"...Probably not." Not given how slippery the kid was while half-delirious. He was a fighter, and no mistaking.
"Then why are they the ones guarding him?"
Because they're friends wasn't an answer. "They work well together," he said instead, even though it wasn't any better justification, now that his Second was looking at him like that.
"Hakoda. The Fire Prince attacked our village. He chased your children and Avatar Aang over half a continent. Sokka and Katara are afraid of him. You should have seen them, looking over their shoulders at the abbey, like they expected him to turn up even there. They don't feel safe anywhere they go, and it's because of him. The prince isn't safe."
Nothing Bato had said about the prince while they caught up was new, really. Just further confirmation of the prince's own story, without the odd embellishments that made Hakoda's own children out to be strategic geniuses and master fighters. Whatever baffling respect the prince had for them, they didn't reciprocate: the version of events they'd relayed to Bato had delighted in detailing every time they'd nearly dropped their pursuer into polar waters, thrown him through walls, or blindsided him with a boomerang.
That head wound the prince had first shown up with was making a lot more sense.
"I know you miss your kids," Bato said. "I know the prince isn't much older than Sokka. But you didn't put your son in armor and set him in command of a war ship on a critical mission. The Fire Lord did. What does that tell you about his son?"
This is why he needed Bato: to call him out when he was letting himself get too soft for this. They had a war to win; the Fire Prince was a bargaining chip. Thinking of him in any other way was as counterproductive as it was dangerous.
"It's good to have you back," he said.
"Glad I made it before the ship was on fire," Bato grinned.
%%%
The bird cages were cleaner than they'd ever been, and the under decks swept and swapped, and Zuko was finally allowed above deck again. The Dog Namer's boat was stowed on deck, stacked on top of the others like the final piece in a set, its rigging stripped and packed away.
The Dog Namer himself was watching him. From the moment he stepped out on deck, like Zuko was going to do anything in the middle of the day, with everyone looking, while holding a wicker basket.
"Laundry," Toklo called, and promptly hid behind Zuko. Panuk was already several steps away getting the water tubs set up, keeping himself out of range.
Most of the crew had learned to politely walk their clothes over, or at least aim for the baskets. For everyone else, Zuko had quick reflexes and a glare. "Throw another shirt at me and see if yours get dried, Ranalok."
"Want me to grab your clothes, Bato?" Panuk called up to the quarterdeck.
"Sure. Thanks."
"Good," the second-youngest tribesman flashed a grin. "Because I already did. No offense, but your stuff stinks."
The newly returned tribesman stared down, looking vaguely puzzled by the single laundry tub and its modest pile of clothes. A 'modest pile' was all they had to do when they did the washing regularly.
"I thought you two hated laundry days."
"They're not so bad." Toklo peeked out from behind Zuko's shoulder, shameless in his cowardice.
Toklo did the actual washing, because he really liked being elbow-deep in warm water and Zuko really didn't like touching the crew's dirty clothes. Zuko wrang things out once they weren't disgusting, dried them, and passed them on to Panuk, who was on check-for-holes duty because he was the best sewer. Also because Zuko had maybe yelled a little about how inefficient it was to put off the sewing pile until it took them two days to do and his fingers were cramped and his bad eye was blurry from squinting at little stitches and if this wasn't women's work they wouldn't let it pile up like this, they'd just do it when it needed doing like men—
Panuk had smirked too much for someone being yelled at. But he'd agreed, so that meant Zuko had won.
The Dog Namer wandered the deck like he owned it, not even working, just stopping to talk with everyone. And he kept watching Zuko, not even hiding it, like Zuko was going to attack someone the second he turned away.
"He'll get used to you," Panuk said.
"I don't care," Zuko snapped. And tried to get his shoulders to relax. It worked, until the next time the newcomer glanced his way.
The man watched him keeping Toklo's water warm, watched the steam that rose between Zuko's hands every time he dried something, watched when Zuko had to drop a pair of socks in his lap so he wouldn't light them on fire because the man wouldn't stop watching.
"You want to take a break?" Panuk asked.
"No."
"You want to go get some snacks for us? I could use something."
"...Fine."
He pushed a pair of half-dry slightly-smoldering socks out of his lap, and stood, and went to grab a plate from the kitchen. Seal Jerky was curled up under the table, optimistically waiting for dropped crumbs; Zuko might or might not have dropped a whole fish. He crouched down, and pet the isopuppy until he didn't want to scream anymore. The dog thumped his tail in uncomplicated approval.
When Zuko came back on deck, the man was waiting for him. Not even waiting: he'd been another step away from coming down the stairs after him.
"That took you awhile."
"Were you timing me?"
The man kept staring. Zuko drew himself up and brushed past. No one had ordered him to deal with this.
%%%
The Fire Prince, Bato noted, dramatically stomped away and proceeded to ignore both his work and the food he'd spent so long getting. Instead he sat there on the open deck, playing with fire.
%%%
"Why is he acting like he's in charge?" Zuko asked. Quietly. He checked whether he'd be able to get back to drying things, and ended up with his hands on fire, which was a 'no'. So he went back to his breathing exercises. Quietly.
"He is in charge," Toklo said. "He's Hakoda's second in command."
Zuko's hands continued to be on fire. A little. ...Quietly. At least no one was yelling at him for it. Even though it was humiliating having an enemy crew be so used to his poor bending that they didn't even flinch from it. No one would ignore Azula if she was having control problems.
(Not that she would have real problems. She'd just smirk and say she was having them, and then his best robes would be on fire and he'd be late for a court function and smelling like burnt silk and bad bending, and it wasn't worth explaining that it wasn't his fault because Father didn't want his excuses.)
"He got burned," Panuk said, not that Zuko had asked. "It was a few weeks before we fished you out. A raid went really bad. We're not sure if it was a trap or just bad luck, but there was another Fire navy ship close enough to join the fight. Our fleet lost people. We weren't sure we hadn't lost Bato, until he made the rendezvous today. We'd left him at an abbey to heal, but—it was bad."
Zuko snuck a glance at the Dog Namer, in one of the rare moments the man wasn't looking straight back. White bandages started at his neck and spiraled down to his wrist. He wore his shirt with one shoulder shrugged off, like he couldn't stand to have the fabric touching him. If it had only been a few weeks, if the burn was anywhere near the size those bandages hinted at, he probably couldn't.
Zuko took in another breath. And let it out. And stopped letting himself have excuses. He grabbed the next piece of clothing and got back to work and didn't let there be fire. He could remember how sca— how he'd felt around flames, when his own bandages were still fresh. It had always been worse when it was someone else's fire, how could he ever trust someone else's fire—
(Except for Uncle's. Uncle was just as lazy as Father and Azula always said, and probably wouldn't have ever gotten back to his training if Zuko hadn't bullied him into it. For weeks, the only thing he did with his flames was light the little fire under his tea. He'd always been too excited describing his latest leaf blend to notice Zuko's flinches. Not like the rest of the crew, who startled almost as badly as Zuko did whenever they bent around him, and rushed to apologize like witnessing his shame was something they needed to apologize for.)
Zuko slowly (really slowly) finished drying the last of the laundry. Then he stood.
"Refill?" Panuk asked, holding the empty plate up hopefully.
"Get your own for once," Zuko said. "I'm going to see the Healer. ...If that's okay."
The tribesman suddenly looked really alarmed. "Are you hurt?"
"What? No."
"It's just that I was pretty sure you'd have to be dying before you ever asked to see Kustaa—"
Zuko scowled. "I just want to ask him something. Can I go or not?"
Panuk shrugged. "Don't see why not."
The Dog Namer clearly did. But Zuko ignored the intercept course the man set for him, and stalked down the stairs.
Healer Kustaa was in the cramped cabin that doubled as the ship's infirmary. He looked up from the book he'd been frowning over, and raised an eyebrow. "Are you dying?"
"No. I just—"
The Dog Namer took up a position looming in the doorway. "Everything all right in here?"
Kustaa's other eyebrow joined the first. "I'm sure my nephew will behave himself."
"You are not my uncle!"
The Dog Namer and the stupid healer exchanged looks, and Zuko didn't know what they meant but he didn't need to, not when fuming was alrady the answer.
With one last look, the newcomer left. Kustaa waited. Zuko crossed his arms, and glared at the wall.
"There was this salve," he said. "That the doctor on my ship used to make. When my burn was— It helped a lot. And it was easy to make, I think I remember—"
The Healer stood, and pulled another book down. He turned to a marked page. "This one?"
"...Yes." Of course the Healer already knew, Zuko shouldn't have bothered him, he'd been stupid, and probably insulting, and—
"Sit down, boy. Are 'degrees' temperature or time? Don't look at me like that; it's not everyday I have a Fire Nation hostage to translate for me. So?"
So Zuko sat. "...Time. You need to keep it at twice chi for twenty degrees of the sun. Umm, chi is temperature, sort of? Twice average resting chi."
"I have no idea what you just said," the Healer said. Followed immediately by: "Can you do it? That temperature, for those… degrees?"
"Of course. It's not that—"
The Healer shoved an empty pot into his hands, and started pulling supplies out of his cabinets.
%%%
"Why," Bato asked, "is the Fire Prince allowed to roam the ship?"
This was another point Hakoda found himself completely unable to explain.
"To be fair, he did ask first," Panuk put in, demonstrating both his unrepentant eavesdropping and his pity for Hakoda.
"Kustaa's not even a fighter," Bato pressed. "You leave them alone together?"
Ranalok came to his rescue, this time. "You haven't seen those two together long; the Prince imprinted on him when he was feverish, or something. Like a duckling-seal. He's about as likely to hurt Kustaa as he is to hurt the dog."
This statement clearly failed to reassure Bato on any level. "You leave him alone with Sokka?"
"Scuttles," Hakoda corrected.
"Seal Jerky," Ranalok grinned.
%%%
It was dark outside the porthole, and Seal Jerky was sprawled asleep in his lap, and Zuko was on his third plate of a late dinner and if Not-Uncle said anything Zuko was never helping him again. Keeping a steady temperature for hours was hard.
"That'll be the last batch for now," Kustaa said, pointedly ignoring both Zuko's scowls and his yawns. "When you're done, get to bed."
"Am I allowed to go without an escort?"
"Bato's giving you trouble already?"
"He's acting like I need to be watched all the time!"
"You do keep loudly talking about escape," the Healer commented, scraping out the bottom of the pot.
"He doesn't know that!"
Kustaa stored the last bottle of salve into the cabinet. "I suppose it's my bedtime, too. Are you done eating?"
Zuko glared. And shoveled the last of the food in his mouth, instead of complaining more.
They went down to the crew cabin together. Zuko was holding a sleepy-squirming dog that kept trying to lick crumbs off his face because dogs were disgusting, and didn't initially see why Kustaa had stopped.
Then he did. The Dog Namer was standing next to Zuko's hammock, holding a fur blanket up to his nose.
"...What are you doing to my bed?" Zuko asked.
"Your bed?"
Which was how Zuko ended up back in the infirmary, on a bed that was too flat and steady and didn't move with the ocean swells anything like a hammock, and it was creepy-quiet with only the dog in there with him.
The Chief had made him swear on his honor he wouldn't try escaping tonight if they let him sleep in here instead of on the floor in the crew cabin. Which had seemed like a good idea at the time, but now the porthole was right there and if the Earth Kingdom ship had taught him anything, it was that maybe he should just drop into the sea and take his chances before everything changed for the worse—
(The Chief's Second had almost been killed by a firebender. Things were going to change, and changes were always for the worse.)
Seal Jerky stretched out over his back, and sleepily thumped Zuko with his tail.
Zuko glared at the moon. And didn't break his word, like an idiot. (Who didn't want to drown.)
%%%
"You trust him?" Bato asked. "You know how much honor means in the Fire Nation."
His Chief looked more amused than the situation called for. "Don't let the prince hear you say that."
"You didn't even lock him in, Hakoda."
"The men know to watch the porthole."
"...The porthole?"
Bato had shared Sokka and Katara's stories of the Fire Prince. Now Hakoda shared his.
Bato continued to not be reassured.
%%%
Zuko jerked out of a worried half-sleep as the door opened. The isopuppy grumpily refused to let him sit up.
It was just the Healer, anyway. Kustaa dropped his pillow onto the room's other bed, got out a spare blanket, and lay down.
"What, you need to keep an eye on me, too?"
"I was having trouble sleeping without the world's quietest night terrors next to me."
"Shut up."
...It was easier, falling back asleep to the sound of his stupid Not-Uncle's breathing.
It was easier for Kustaa to fall asleep, too, with the brat curled up under a dog just across the room. A lot easier than jolting awake, and realizing the prince had said his burn had been treated by his ship's doctor.
The prince was sixteen. That scar was years old. It wasn't the sort of math a man needed before bed.
%%%
Bato let out a breath, some of the tension bleeding out of his shoulders. Changing bandages was not a pleasant experience. The sudden shift of air over his healing skin, the press of sensation that he couldn't read as anything but pain.
"New recipe?" he asked, as Kustaa kept carefully applying the slave. It was almost cool, where it touched. Numbing. He wished the nuns had this.
"Finally worked out the Fire Nation one."
Bato snorted. "The Fire Nation would know burns."
"They would," the healer said tightly, capping the ointment jar with a very final sort of click. He reached for a bandage roll.
Bato's shoulders tensed again. He held his breath.
%%%
Zuko was learning to make a hammock. Maybe by the time he caught the Avatar, he'd make one he wouldn't fall through. It would be easier to figure this out if people would stop shoving plates at him while he was trying to remember what row he was on.
%%%
Bato was learning how uncomfortably comfortable the crew had become around firebending in his absence. The prince was breathing sparks as he yelled at them. Sane reactions to this would be dunking the firebender overboard or otherwise teaching him that prisoners weren't entitled to be yelling, and that there would be consequences for firebent threats.
Insane reactions included ignoring those behaviors completely and shoving more plates of food at him, thus encouraging him to firebend more. Bato appreciated a hot meal as much as the next man, especially after getting used to warm meals at the abbey, but he didn't need his fish with the aftertaste of global conquest.
"A little unnerving, isn't it?" Hakoda asked, following his gaze to the tongues of flame that chased the prince's shouts.
"I thought their dragonbreath was just a story." Bato had liked it better as a story.
"General Fong's secretary says it's a sign of a master bender."
"...Hakoda. How bad were their terms, exactly?" Why was the prince not enjoying Fong's hospitality, somewhere that had better methods for dealing with a master firebender than 'knock him on the head before he causes too much damage'?
"Pretty bad," his best friend said. "You know Fong. He'd have left us to deal with any blame for the prince's capture, and used the ransom terms only for the Earth Kingdom."
The prince shot a glance their way, almost like he could hear their quiet conversation from all the way across the deck. More like he just felt like sharing his glares; the kid had been doing nothing but glaring at him, since he'd come aboard yesterday. Everytime he turned around the prince was glaring a hole in his back.
The isopuppy was hanging around him, probably waiting for one of those plates to fall. Bato patted his knees. "Here, Sokka. Who's a good boy?" He scruffed up the fur on the pup's face, and ignored his friend's sigh.
"Please don't call him that."
"But it's good to remember your kids, Chief."
Hakoda gained a certain glint to his eye. "You know what? Go ahead. Call him that."
Across the deck, the prince was glaring their way again.
"Seal Jerky, come," he snapped, his voice every bit the imperious royal. It said something that the Prince of the Fire Nation used the same tone for dogs as he likely did for the men under his command.
"You don't need to listen to the mean little future Fire Lord," Bato crooned, but the pup was already squirming away from him to trot back across the deck.
The prince scratched behind the isopup's ears, and smirked.
The dog's legs got hopelessly entangled in that shoddy excuse for a hammock he was making, and had to be cut free. Bato smirked.
%%%
"This is how I always do it!" Zuko shouted.
"Well, you always do it wrong," the Dog Namer said. "Who even taught you?"
Toklo did his best to fade into the background. Zuko pointedly did not glare his way as the Chief's Second made him coil every rope on the deck. Again. And Again. Because he'd shown him how to do it too fast on purpose, and Zuko wasn't going to beg the man to show him again when there'd been nothing wrong with how he was doing it in the first place, how was it even possible to coil rope wrong, and if he had been screwing it up then someone would have noticed by now because all the lines lead straight back to the—
"Stop watching the sails."
"There's sails everywhere! I can't not see them if I'm on deck!"
"I can fix that," the man said.
...Zuko regretted his life choices.
%%%
Bato was getting a crash course in their current strategy.
"—Now that you're back, we'll rejoin the rest of the fleet," Hakoda said, tracing out their path on the map between them. "General Fong might be angry with us, but General How was happy enough to send us intelligence on the Fire Nation's newest supply ports."
"Ah," Bato said. "Was that the albatross that came in today?"
"Exactly. I've got the rest of the fleet scouting their supply routes; by the time we're back north, we should have some targets to hit. Then we'll just see how many we can take out before they shift again. Maybe head back down to Chameleon Bay after that. Make sure no one's getting bright ideas about blocading the inland routes, and get the men some shore leave. Not everyone got an extended vacation with nuns."
"If you're jealous, I'm sure our firebender would be happy enough to arrange your stay," Bato said. "Where did you pick him up, anyway?"
It was a fairly anonymous strip of ocean, all things considered. No major routes that they knew of, near enough to shore but far enough from any Fire Nation friendly ports to make it clear the prince had been following the coast line, suspiciously far into Earth Kingdom controlled waters. The prince's ship, it seemed, did not move with the rest of their fleet. Which made sense, if they were on special assignment to track the Avatar down. One small ship could slip past areas a flotilla would have to fight through.
"How long has he been on board? He seems awfully comfortable here."
Hakoda ran a hand through his hair, in the way he did when he was trying not to get caught rubbing a headache away. "Almost a month, now."
"...And his father hasn't replied?"
"We tried routing the message through Earth Kingdom channels, to protect the fleet location. That was before I realized how petty Fong was going to be over this. It wouldn't surprise me if the first message was lost in transit."
That would certainly make more sense than the Fire Lord simply ignoring the capture of his eldest son, yes.
"I've re-sent through Sung. With any luck, we'll be hearing back within the next few days."
He was back up to speed on the fleet's activities by bedtime. The Fire Prince's sad attempt at a hammock hung in a corner of the crew cabin, with clear signs of something approximately the size of a sixteen-year-old menace falling through. Another night in the infirmary beds, then. Bato couldn't say he was disappointed; the idea of trying to sleep with a royal firebender a few hand's span away from him was less than pleasant. And Kustaa's bedding was gone; he was probably spending another night keeping tabs on the boy.
All of this did nothing to explain why his bed smelled like smoke. Even more than it had last night.
"Oh, you noticed?" Toklo said, with a smile that suggested this was a good thing. "We finished all the chores you gave him, and he said that you said that he wasn't allowed on deck, and for a hostage he really sucks at not working, so we started washing all the bedding. Isn't it awesome?" Their youngest crewman was buried up to his nose in his own blankets.
Bato's favorite blanket was thick and warm, stuffed with goose-hare down. It smelled like a campfire on the edge of flaring out of control. It smelled like the moment in his nightmares before he woke up. It didn't smell anything like being warm in bed while outside the winds howled, or like his late wife's careful hands as she'd stitched it, or home.
"We only did blankets today; we'll do furs tomorrow!"
Bato regretted his life choices.
"...Let the prince know he's allowed back on deck. And stay away from my furs."
%%%
It took Bato a long time to realize what was bothering him, the next morning. The prince was doing an admittedly thorough job of swabbing the deck. The breeze was as chilly as yesterday's, but the sky was cloudless today and the sun strong; apparently this translated to the boy keeping his hood down and his sleeves rolled up, like a sunning lizard.
There was something he couldn't quite put his finger on. Something more than the way the kid kept glaring back at him, or the complete ridiculousness that was his shaved head with that one prideful plume of carefully tied back hair.
"...Where is he getting a razor from?" Bato asked, to no one in particular.
No one in particular was able to answer.
%%%
"Not me," Toklo said. "I figured he was asking Panuk."
%%%
"I've been keeping tabs on mine. He hasn't touched it," Panuk said. "Maybe Kustaa?"
%%%
"You think that brat knows how to ask for things? I figure he's just been taking one when no one's watching, and putting it back when he's done. Probably cleans it before he does, too." Kustaa snorted, and put the lid back on another container of that divine burn salve. "Try looking for the cleanest kit. That's the one he's using."
The healer reached for clean bandages. Bato's shoulders tensed.
%%%
The cleanest kit was Aake's. Aake had been growing out his beard, and hadn't touched said kit for months. The straight razor inside gleamed like it was new, in exactly the way a piece of metal neglected in the humid, salty environment of a ship shouldn't.
Aake was not amused. Neither was Bato, or Hakoda.
"I put it back!" the prince protested. Probably the only reason he was still sitting in the chair across from the Chief was because he'd been ordered to. He was splitting his glares evenly between Hakoda in front of him, and Bato standing near the door behind. "And I cleaned it! Better than he did!"
"You stole a weapon," Hakoda repeated, like it would get through any better on the second try.
"I'm a firebender," the kid scowled. "How am I more dangerous with a razor? And anyway, there's no rule against shaving."
"There is against theft."
The prince had the audacity to cross his arms. "No there's not. I need to work or I can't eat, if you catch me escaping you'll break my legs, no 'instigating fights' or people can beat me as much as they want, and if I hurt anyone or anything with firebending you'll kill me. Those are the rules."
The Chief let a slow breath out. "New rule. No stealing."
"Or what?" the prince asked.
Hakoda gave in to the urge to rub his temples. "Just don't, Your Highness. Sometimes things don't need consequences, because you shouldn't be doing them."
"But—"
"I'm sure someone will let you borrow a razor if you ask. Go ask."
This was a clear dismissal. The Fire Prince stood, edged around Bato with his usual scowl, and made for the door.
He paused, one foot in the hall, shifting his weight uncertainly. "Did my father reply yet?"
"No."
"...Okay."
%%%
Zuko had no idea what the consequences for stealing were. This was a problem. This was a problem because he'd been slowly moving the supplies he'd need once he stole a boat into a single spot in the back of their cargo hold (the cargo hold they'd let him reorganize, and oops, he'd left a space between a few crates that you'd have to move the contents of the entire room to find if you didn't already know where it was—)
He didn't like not knowing what would happen, if they found out. The Chief had been… weirdly consistent about his rules, and Zuko just wanted to know.
It was clearly part of an escape attempt though, so. He was just going to assume they'd break something, so he could stop worrying about his punishment being worse. It didn't even matter if he never got caught.
(It was better to worry about them breaking his legs than it was to wonder how disappointed in him Father must be. Why else would he take so long to reply? Zuko had to escape on his own. Had to prove he was worthy of a second (third) chance, prove he wasn't just a drain on the royal resources only fit to be used as a tool against his Father—)
%%%
"That boy is actively plotting against you," Bato observed.
"I've noticed," Hakoda said.
"I hear Aake had a good idea."
Hakoda remembered when he'd considered Aake's leg-breaking suggestion and, in his naive idealism, discarded it as stooping too low. He discarded it again now, for a more practical reason: he couldn't picture a broken leg stopping the prince from doing something stupid.
%%%
"The Chief ordered me to ask someone if I can borrow their razor when I shave," Zuko said. "...Can I borrow your razor when I shave?"
Ranalok blinked down at him. "All right. As long as you clean it."
"Why didn't you ask me?" Toklo complained.
"Yours is filthy."
"...Just how many kits did you go through before you stole Aake's?" Panuk asked.
The prince turned a shade of red corresponding to his answer.
%%%
Bato let out a breath, his shoulders relaxing as that miracle salve went on.
Kustaa didn't reach for new bandages. "We're going to let it breath, today. You're healing well."
Bato's shoulders tensed. He made himself keep breathing as he headed back up on deck, his burned side on display for the whole tribe to see. A few crewmen stopped short at whatever they were doing, then went back to work like they hadn't seen a thing. A few nodded to him, and thankfully left it at that.
The Fire Prince was the only one to stare.
%%%
That was. That was… bigger than Zuko had thought it would be, even with the bandages. He didn't know people could survive burns that large. Even with a proper Fire Nation doctor, even with Father's mercy in sparing his eye and limiting the flame's spread, his own wound had gotten infected. Uncle had been really worried.
...He and Kustaa were going to need to make more burn salve, weren't they?
%%%
Bato cut himself off mid-sentence. He had been answering Aake and Ranalok's questions about the young Avatar. The Fire Prince had been hovering near them, sanding down the same spot on the rail for minutes.
"Can I help you?" he asked.
"...No."
%%%
Everytime he went to get food, or left the deck for any reason, the stupid Dog Namer was right there on his heels.
"Can I help you?" Zuko snapped.
"No," the man said, grabbing a plate and putting exactly one tiny fish on it, like he was making a point.
This was making it really hard for Zuko to sneak extra food down to his cache.
...On the bright side, Seal Jerky was really happy that he had even more food than usual hidden in his pockets. And not even the Chief's Second was questioning the extras, not with their naming war going on.
%%%
"Sokka, here boy," the Dog Namer cajoled. "Sokka—"
"Good Seal Jerky," Zuko said, with firebender-warm belly scratches and an escape's worth of bribes ready for tactical deployment.
It helped that the rest of the crew seemed to be on his side.
"Good boy, Seal Jerky," Ranalok said, adding his own belly scratches in passing. For once, the Dog Namer glared at someone other than Zuko.
%%%
The prince was trying to sneak into the cargo hold. The prince was trying to sneak into the cargo hold, and no one else seemed to think this was a problem.
"We always bathe after cleaning the bird cages, they're filthy! And I don't need you staring at me!"
Toklo stood awkwardly between them, a full bucket of water dragging down his arms. "I mean, we usually do it up in the crew cabin. But you have been staring a lot. It's kind of creepy when we're naked, Bato."
...He was going to ignore that extremely valid point, because it did nothing to negate his own extremely valid point. "I do not trust you in the cargo hold, Your Highness. Bathe in the crew cabin, or stay dirty."
Bato kept guard—he did not stare, and he definitely didn't do so creepily. The prince glared back at him, and pointedly boiled the bucket of water between his hands.
"Well that's… toasty," Toklo said. "Could you…?"
The prince huffed out a breath, turned his glare to the wall, and did something that brought the roiling bubble of the water down to a simple cloud of steam.
"And could you…?" Toklo said, making a little shooing motion at Bato.
Bato stared at the prince until he caught his gaze again. "Stay out of the cargo hold. Or do I need to check it?"
The prince huffed again. Bato left them to it, with a final glare of warning.
%%%
Bato checked the cargo hold. He didn't find anything. Which might have been because he couldn't find anything.
...When had they found time to reorganize the entire place?
%%%
The man was following him again, Zuko hadn't even tried to sneak any extra food today, he was just eating, he was allowed to eat whenever he wanted, Panuk said so, so why did the man keep following him when he wasn't even doing anything wrong—
"Just leave me alone!" His fire was crawling under his skin. With the man always after him he hadn't even been able to pretend to meditate. There was nowhere he could just sit down for a minute and breathe without being stared at.
"Not hungry, Your Highness?" the Dog Namer mocked, and Zuko realized he'd started leaving without even grabbing anything. He'd—he'd come back later (and the man would still be right on his heels) or wait until Panuk or Toklo got hungry and take something off their plates (which they'd make fun of him for, because it was apparently hilarious that using his firebending all day for chores made him hungry), or—or he'd just wait until dinner and eat more than. This didn't matter, and he didn't care.
He did care when the man tried to get between him and the door, and suddenly his breath control was starting to slip.
"I know you've been taking more food than you need, Prince Zuko. I know you've been hiding it somewhere, probably for whatever idea of an escape attempt you have in your head, and I am going to figure out where. You're our hostage, not our guest. These little unescorted walks of yours are fooling no one, and they will stop."
"You don't make the rules," Zuko spat, and there was fire on his tongue, hot enough it almost singed him. The stupid room was too small and the man was too close and Zuko needed to not be here.
"I am the second in—"
Zuko brushed past him. The hall wasn't any better. He needed to get away and just breathe, but the man followed him everywhere. Almost everywhere.
"Where do you think you're going?"
He opened the infirmary door, but it was empty inside. Kustaa wasn't there to tell the man off for him, and the man was so close he was almost stepping on Zuko's heels and there wasn't anywhere else he could go, this was the Chief's Second, no one else on the crew would help him (could help him) except—
Except—
Zuko pushed inside the Chief's room. He saw a new message tube and a map that the Chief immediately moved to cover. And then the Dog Namer was grabbing Zuko's arm and—
"Leave me alone."
—then there was fire.
The man let go of him. Backed off fast, with the same fear in his eyes that Zuko had the first time after his burn that he'd sparred with Lieutenant Jee, because it wasn't a serious fight but what if it was, if his Father would burn him why wouldn't any other soldier and Bato had even less reason to trust him then that—
Zuko scythed a hand down quick. The flames followed, torn off the man's sleeve and snuffed in the air without anything to sustain them.
"I—I'm—"
Sorry? It wouldn't change the way the man looked at him. Or the way the Chief looked at him.
"I didn't—"
Mean to? When had that ever mattered? The Chief was weirdly consistent about his rules, and Zuko had just used his flames against one of the crew. Maybe the man wouldn't go through with actually killing him, he was still the Prince of the Fire Nation, he was still a valuable hostage—
(Father hadn't written back to the Chief in a month.)
(Father hadn't written back to him in two and a half years.)
That was the point that Zuko lost his breath control completely.
%%%
The Prince of the Fire Nation was having some sort of breakdown in Hakoda's cabin. This was his life now.
"Sit," he ordered, but the boy just backed away from him, further into the room, shifting into something that would have been a defensive stance if it wasn't so shaky. The kid wasn't breathing right. Hakoda didn't take his eyes off the firebender, but he shifted his attention to Bato. "Are you okay?"
His best friend wasn't looking much steadier.
...Prince first. Bato wasn't likely to light the ship on fire if he kept panicking.
Carefully, telegraphing the movement, Hakoda stepped out into the hall and whistled. "Scuttles. Sokka. ...Seal Jerky."
The pup trotted down from the deck, ears pricked. Hakoda picked him up, and carried him in to the prince.
"Hold. And sit."
Whatever the firebender had been expecting, it clearly wasn't a dog shoved into his arms. He sat on the edge of Hakoda's bed. Not the chair, which would have put his back to the Water Tribesmen.
Hakoda took Bato out into the hall, and sat him down. He left the door open enough to keep an eye on the prince, who was darting glances at the porthole too consistently for comfort. But he'd leaned back against the wall, and was curling his fingers into the dog's fur instead of just holding him, so.
"Let me see," Hakoda said, and rolled up his friend's sleeve. The fabric was singed and the skin underneath hot to the touch, but not visibly burned. He let out a slow breath.
(The prince had been watching, too. He jerked his gaze away when Hakoda looked at him.)
(Scuttles took this opportunity to lick the prince's undefended chin, which caused an entirely different and distinctly healthier kind of jerk.)
"What happened?" Hakoda asked, quietly.
Bato answered him, quietly.
(The prince pulled his feet up onto the bed. Scuttles filled up his lap, stopping him from curling up too tightly.)
%%%
The Chief's Second was telling him that Zuko had been taking extra food, which he had, and hiding it, which he had, and disobeying orders, which he had, and he didn't need to say anything about the fire because the Chief had been right there.
And then he'd… handed Zuko a dog. Which didn't make any sense, probably because Water Tribe culture was fundamentally incomprehensible. That would explain most of his experiences on this ship.
He should probably just jump out the window while they were distracted.
...Would the Chief hand his dog to someone he was about to kill?
Zuko just. Had no idea what was going on right now.
"Have Kustaa check it out," the Chief said. Both men stood, and the Dog Namer went back up on deck. The Chief straightened his shoulders, set his face to something unreadable, and then came to deal with his prisoner. He took the guest seat at his desk, and turned it to face the bed (which put him equidistant to stopping Zuko from escaping out either the porthole or the door.)
"What happened?"
"He already told you."
The man let out a slow breath. "I'd like to hear it from you."
He wanted to hear Zuko confess, dig himself deeper when the Dog Namer couldn't even prove everything he'd said? He wanted Zuko to contradict the man he clearly trusted, give him an excuse to… to what?
The Chief had been really clear about what the consequences of hurting someone with his bending would be, and then he'd handed Zuko his dog.
"Prince Zuko," the man said, "I'd just like to hear your side of the story. I'm not going to punish you for an accident."
Which was. Which was such a lie. And what did it being an accident even have to do with anything?
"I broke a rule. You said—you said you couldn't ignore it if—"
"Are you trying to argue against yourself?" the man was almost smiling. They were having two different conversations again. This one felt friendlier than the one they'd held up on the mast, but that didn't make any sense, because that time all he'd been doing was trying to sneak away but this time he'd firebent at the man's friend. He'd done something actually wrong, instead of all the things the man had imagined him doing.
"Let's start with what happened, Prince Zuko, and figure things out from there."
"He kept following me and I couldn't just sit down and breathe, I haven't been able to meditate right since you pulled me on this stupid ship and I haven't been able to do it at all since he came aboard, and my fire is— I'm not trying to make excuses, I should have better control, I should be better—"
%%%
"It might blister, but that should be the worst of it," Kustaa said, leaving the cap off the jar of salve.
Bato flexed his wrist, appreciating the familiar numbness the medicine brought, and tried not to stare at the empty jar with as much trepidation as he felt. "Are we out of that stuff?"
"We'll make more." Kustaa's lips briefly twisted down. "If the Chief doesn't maim my heat source."
"...What?"
"It's a Fire Nation recipe, Bato. Who did you think helped me figure it out? The brat volunteered for it, too; he came to me, not long after you got back." Kustaa gave him one of those flat looks of his. The ones that said he wasn't judging, but it would be nice if his patients would stop hurting themselves.
The Fire Nation would know burns, Bato had said, and Kustaa had agreed with him, as he'd applied medicine the Fire Prince had helped make. The burned Fire Prince.
Bato's wrist wasn't the only thing that felt a little numb.
%%%
"You don't strike me as the meditating type," Hakado said, because it was his own fault for asking the prince to tell a coherent story. He already knew how that went.
The prince was running his hands over the dog's shell, smoothing the fur between carapace plates. "Uncle says it keeps our inner fire aligned with our intentions. Or something. He… says it better."
"So you're saying you burned Bato's sleeve because you haven't been able to mediate?"
"I burned his sleeve because I'm not a good bender. Father almost never meditates, his fire never— He doesn't burn anyone unless they deserve it."
Scuttles nuzzled at the boy's still hands. It took him a moment to respond, to start moving again.
If what the Fire Lord was doing to the world was any indication, then Hakoda had opinions on how good his control really was versus how much the man simply didn't care who he hurt.
Unlike his son. Which was a strange realization, in that it didn't actually surprise Hakoda at all.
"This meditation—it helps your control?"
%%%
They talked about meditation instead of how Zuko had just burned someone.
And somehow that ended up with Zuko sitting on the Chief's floor with an oil lamp in front of him, trying to pretend the Chief wasn't over at his desk handling his correspondence and probably also waiting to see what else he'd light on fire today. Also as soon as he'd gotten his legs crossed the dog settled back into his lap which was just—this was not the proper way to meditate—
But he was being allowed to do it. Which was some sort of weird, nonsensical alternative to being murdered. So. He should at least try.
Zuko let out a breath, and tried to center himself even with a dog yawning in his lap, and a Water Tribesman sitting at the edge of his vision. (At least it was the good side of his vision. And at least the dog was warm.)
He inhaled, and reached his chi out to the flame.
%%%
It was entirely disconcerting to Hakoda when the flame on his desk lamp started moving, too. A few weeks ago, he would have called it a head game; the Fire Prince showing he could do more than he'd led Hakoda to believe. Now, he just wondered if the prince himself was aware of what a fire behind him was doing.
Or of the way he was still petting the dog, even as the flames in the room went from flickering erratically to settling down into the ever slower cadence of the boy's breathing. It was unnatural. ...Or perfectly natural, to a firebender. Katara had been moving water since she could toddle. The Fire Lord's son had probably been making lamps flicker from his crib.
Hakoda rolled up the map he'd been working on, hiding away their fleet's intended movements. He took out the week's correspondence, instead, and set himself to reporting to the many Earth Kingdom allies who demanded such things, as well as the captains of his own fleet who'd actually earned it.
When he looked up next, the prince's hands were still over the dozing isopup's back. His shoulders were squared, instead of hunched; his back held straight, instead of rigid. He was just… breathing. And the flames breathed with him.
Hakoda got more work done than he'd thought.
%%%
Zuko realized it was almost dinnertime. He'd been taking up space on the floor of the Chief's room for an embarrassingly long time. Uncle always said he should take as long as he needed to feel centered again, but the Chief was not Uncle, he hadn't even known firebenders needed to meditate.
He'd been sitting still a long time; his legs were numb under the dog's weight, and he was getting cold. He made his next breath more deliberate. Drew it in deep, coiled it up with his inner fire, spread the warmth outward into his body. His next breath came out with a lick of fire.
Which must have been way too obvious. The Chief had put down his quill, and was watching him.
"I've been told that breathing fire is the sign of a master."
%%%
The boy blinked up at him. "I—what? No. It's just one of Uncle's tricks. Like heating his tea without flames."
One of the Dragon of the West's tricks.
"I can't say I've seen that trick of heating before, either," Hakoda said.
"Why would you? It's not like it's even real bending. It's not useful in a fight, why would anyone want to learn it?"
"You did."
The boy flushed. With embarrassment, not anger. "...Uncle keeps wanting me to make tea the traditional way, but it's really hard to get the temperature right without bending. So sometimes when he's not watching I… cheat. A little."
...The boy had learned a technique Hakoda had never heard of before, to cheat at making tea. Of course he had.
"How hard is it, to control heat without flame?"
"I—I think you have the wrong idea. I'm not a master, I'm barely past the basics, that's why Father— It's. I'm not good. But I swear I'll work harder, I won't hurt anyone again, I won't make you regret giving me another chance."
The boy didn't seem to understand the idea of an accident. At least he understood how serious the consequences of said accident could have been. And if the boy needed to sit and breathe with a flame to keep his own fires under control, then Hakoda wasn't blameless in this; he hadn't even asked if there were exercises a firebender in training needed to do. Katara had once almost brought down the ceiling of their home over a fight with her brother; how much worse would losing control of fire be? Hakoda didn't pretend to understand this 'inner fire' that their people took such pride in, or how anyone human could light things on fire with a mere act of will. But he didn't need to understand, to know that a flame needed to be maintained with care so it wouldn't burn out of control. Or extinguish.
"How often do you need to meditate?"
"Uncle does it for at least seven degrees every day. That's, uh. About half an hour, by Earth Kingdom sand clocks. ...I don't know how the Water Tribe measures time."
"By Earth Kingdom time is fine." The Southern Water Tribe didn't traditionally bother with such fiddly measures as hours; most of their activities went by the seasons the moon brought. The season the ice receded and the seal-gulls pupped, the season the blue-dye berries grew and the ground was loose enough to dig roots, the season the salmon-trout ran and the orca-wolves joined their boats in the hunt. An Earth Kingdom hour was an inconsequential unit, when there were days or weeks of work to be had.
"And I didn't ask about your Uncle. How often do you need to meditate?"
"...I usually did it in the evening. For an hour. Sometimes a little more earlier, if… if the crew was being too stupid, or Zhao was in port, or—or if Uncle started pretending to have hearing loss. I do not shout that loud." That pale skin of his did nothing to hide his increasing redness. But his shoulders stayed loose, and his voice at an appropriate volume for a small enclosed space, and for once he wasn't bristling defensively at Hakoda's mere gaze.
"I update the ship's log in the evening," Hakoda said, and could tell by the look on the prince's face that he didn't understand. "You can come here after your chores are done, if you want a quiet space. If you need a break—"
—And there was the bristling he was used to—
"—for meditation during the day, I expect you to find myself or Healer Kustaa. We both have rooms you can use. If this affects the safety of my crew, then I order you to meditate as needed."
"...Yes, sir." The prince still looked like he didn't understand. Hakoda was beginning to suspect that was an entirely different issue.
"Bato is right, though. You have been taking more food than you need. No more snacks for the dog, or whatever else you might have been doing with it. And stay out of the cargo hold, or you'll be rearranging it again, and I'll be watching this time. Wouldn't it be a shame if I found something."
"...Yes, sir." The prince really needed to work on not looking incredibly guilty.
Hakoda would need to bring Scuttles down into the hold, and sniff out whatever escape supplies the prince had been squirrel-ratting away. Later. Preferably without the prince noticing, so the boy didn't end up curled at the head of Hakoda's bed again, hugging a dog as he panicked over his punishment.
%%%
Toklo waved him over the moment he went back on deck. Zuko ignored him, and marched to where the Chief's Second was sitting on deck, having dinner with other crewmen who really didn't like him but he kept walking towards their group anyway. When he was close enough, he bowed. Sometimes he wondered if bowing was invented so you didn't have to look at people when you apologized.
"I'm sorry. I should have had better control over my flames. My behavior was unbefitting of a firebender. I have no excuse for my actions; I need to be more careful."
The man wasn't saying anything. And he kept not saying anything. Zuko snuck a glance up, and found him exchanging looks with the Chief, like… like he thought Zuko had been put up to this, or something. If he'd been put up to this then he'd probably have said it better, like when Mother used to coach him and Azula on how to apologize to each other.
Whatever the Dog Namer saw in the Chief's face was apparently enough for him to at least look at Zuko again. Zuko ducked his head, and waited.
"Why don't you join us for dinner, Your Highness," he said, which was not in any way an acceptance of the apology. "Ever had sea prunes?" And his smile was in no way reassuring. Neither was the way he moved to the side and patted the deck between himself and the Leg Breaker.
"Um," Zuko said. Which was the point the Chief gave him a little push on the back, towards them. Which wasn't technically an order. Except that it was.
Zuko sat in perfect leg-cramping seiza, back rigid, as he was handed an entire plate of small round wrinkled blobs. Around him the men were snickering and smiling. The Chief took a seat nearby, and even he was shaking his head a little.
This was how Zuko got poisoned, wasn't it? He was pretty sure he was about to get poisoned. There was obviously something wrong with these things, they didn't even look like food, and they'd handed him the whole plate like it was his but that wasn't how Water Tribe meals worked—
He took one off the plate. The group visibly leaned forward in anticipation. The man he'd burned was grinning.
Zuko shoved the whole thing into his mouth, because he wasn't going to take a tiny little coward's bite. He was just going to take whatever was coming and try not to throw up no matter how bad it was—
It wasn't.
Bad.
It was—the outside skin was awful, squishy-briny-fermented-mush, but the inside was firmer and sour-sweet and it tasted almost exactly like the umeboshi grandmother used to send them (grandmother on his mother's side, when she still sent things to the palace for them, when Mother was still there and he and Azula weren't just Ozai's children).
(If he wasn't going to throw up in front of them, he definitely wasn't going to cry—)
It was. It was really good.
The men were laughing at him, and the Dog Namer was smirking. "They're a Water Tribe delicacy; you don't have to eat them if you don't like them, Your Highness."
The man was trying to take the plate back. But both of Zuko's hands were gripping the edges, and everyone was staring now, so.
"Get your own," he said, and took the plate back.
"...Those are for everyone, Your Highness."
"Joke's on you, then." Zuko said, and threw another one in his mouth.
People were laughing. The Chief was laughing. At his Second, not at Zuko. And the Dog Namer was ruefully taking it, he didn't look mad at all (and his sleeve was rolled up, but the burn Zuko had given him hadn't been bad enough to bandage, it just had the oily sheen of salve on it).
The man followed his gaze. "Is that stuff what you used on yours?" he asked, quieter than the conversations around them.
"...Yeah."
"Thanks," he said. "...You're still not allowed to wander the ship on your own."
"The Chief already told me."
Zuko shared the plate. Eventually. He even broke seiza, eventually. Dinner with the older men was weird and he didn't really say anything to them, and they didn't say anything to him, but when he kept sneaking sea prunes some of them smiled at him. This did nothing to make it less weird, but it felt… okay. To be smiled at.
After dinner, Ranalok helped him keep his latest hammock attempt untangled and dog-free for long enough that it took some kind of shape. A vaguely hammock-shaped one. It didn't even look that bad, when it was covered in the blankets Kustaa brought him from the infirmary. And he was pretty sure the ominous creaking was just it settling against its new hooks in the ceiling. Probably.
Seal Jerky listened to it with a dubious whine, then left to sleep with the Chief. Water Tribe traitor.
%%%
He made a better one the next day. And pointedly did not heat any plates for Toklo until he stopped laughing about the bruises Zuko did not have from that crash in the night they were not talking about.
%%%
It wasn't so strange to find the enemy prince in Hakoda's room, sitting quietly on the floor, the flames in front of him as well-behaved as this kid wasn't.
It felt like it should have felt stranger. But the steady rise and fall of the flames was oddly soothing in the otherwise dark cabin. Hakoda could see the appeal in this meditation of theirs.
%%%
The Fire Lord's first reply came four days later. Hakoda suddenly understood the appeal of setting things on fire, as well.